Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Health & Medicine

Artificial spleen cleans up blood

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
September 15, 2014
in Health & Medicine, News, Technology
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit
Magnetic nanobeads in the ‘biospleen’ device bind to Escherichia coli (left) and Staphylococcus aureus (right) and remove them from blood. Harvard’s Wyss Institute

Researchers have developed a device which can clean the blood in the body of virtually all infections – even those which they don’t know about. The device, which was heavily inspired from the human spleen can clean the blood of everything from E. coli to Ebola.

The spleen is an organ that appears in all vertebrates, acting basically as a blood filter. However, while the spleen is very effective at fighting off most blood infections, there are some which it cannot defeat. Those blood infections are extremely dangerous and can become septic; most cases are treated with large spectrum antibiotics – but that approach is not always effective.

Another (long term) problem with antibiotics is that they can kill most, but not all the bacteria – thus helping the remaining ones develop resistance to the drug. Specialized antibiotic would work much better, but the problem is that in over 50% of cases, physicians can’t accurately diagnose the cause of the infection. In search of an alternative, a team led by Donald Ingber, a bioengineer at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Boston, Massachusetts, developed an artificial ‘biospleen’ which can filter out blood, cleaning it of any potential infection – even if you don’t know what it is.

ADVERTISEMENT
biospleen
The ‘biospleen’ uses protein-equipped nanobeads and a magnet to cleanse blood of pathogens. Harvard’s Wyss Institute

The device uses a modified version of mannose-binding lectin (MBL) – a protein which occurs naturally in humans that binds to sugar molecules on the surfaces of more than 90 different bacteria, viruses and fungi. It also binds to the toxins which bacteria release when they are killed – it’s these toxins that trigger the immune overreaction in sepsis.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

So far, they tested the device on rats; they infected the rats with E. coli or Staphylococcus aureus and filtered blood through the biospleen. After only 5 hours, 89% of the rats whose blood had been filtered were still alive, compared with only 14% of those that were infected but not treated. Researchers found that the device removed over 90% of the bacteria from the blood, also reducing inflammation in the internal organs.

They then tested the device to see if it could work on larger volumes of blood – like the 5 liters that humans have on average. They ran human blood through the biospleen at a rate of about 1 liter per hour and found that the device removed most of the pathogens within five hours. That rate is probably enough to cure most blood infections, even severe ones. Ingber is very confident in says that the biospleen could help treat even viral diseases such as HIV and Ebola. The group is now testing the device on pigs, and if that works out fine, then human trials will start soon.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tags: bioengineeringproteinspleen
ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.